Wilhelm D. Styer

Wilhelm D. Styer standing in front of a flame thrower mounted on a medium tank chassis at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. To the right of General Styer is Col, Jay C. Whitehair, Howard C. Peterson, and Col. George P. Unmacht. 

Under Colonel Unmacht the composite group of Army, Navy, and Marine personnel produced more main armament flame throwing tanks than did engineers in the United States, but the problems which they faced were much simpler. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps in the Pacific were anxious to get the weapons and gave the Chemical section all necessary assistance and supplies, whereas Edgewood could not get the Army to set up a requirement for a main armament flame thrower and had great diffi- 

Enemy armies had mechanized flame throwers, but used them infrequently. Indeed, there is no record of Italians or Japanese using flame tanks against United States troops. The Italians had had tank mounted weapons since the Ethiopian War, 1935-1936. The tank was quite light and mounted the flame gun coaxially with a machine gun. Fuel was carried in a trailer with a capacity of one hundred gallons. The range was rather low, from thirty to forty-five yards. The reasons why the Italians did not employ their tanks are not known. Among them may have been the lack of opportunity, unfamiliarity with flame thrower tactics, and conservatism of tank commanders.  

American troops did not see Japanese flame throwing vehicles until they captured eight on Luzon in 1945. The weapons were placed on amphibious tractors, similar to American DUKW s. The Japanese did not have fuel thickeners comparable to American napalm, and had to use mixtures of crude oil, gasoline, and kerosene. Since Japanese troops employed portable flame throwers against Americans from early 1942 onward, it is difficult to explain why they did not use mechanized flame throwers. American troops learned by trial and error of the value of flame tanks, and perhaps the Japanese never threw off their conservatism sufficiently to give the tanks full-scale battle tests.  

M3A1 Light Tank Equipped With Flame Gun firing during a demonstration, 

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